This holiday season, in honor of our service members, veterans, and their families, the Vice President and Dr. Jill Biden dedicated five trees at the Naval Observatory Residence representing each branch of the U.S. Armed Forces.

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1. No love is perfect. It has its highs and its lows — and some of them are very high, and very low — but the lows are not a sign of weakness or that you shouldn’t be together. Rather, they’re something that brings you closer to each other.

2. Sometimes you just need to hold your partner’s hand or give them a hug, and not ask questions or give them any advice. Just knowing that you’re there is more comforting than words.

3. You can be mad at someone and still love them senseless. Getting mad at someone doesn’t forecast the end of your relationship, it just means you’re humans who have feelings and screw up from time to time.

4. Someone can come from a broken family or make it through a tough childhood, and show no trace of it. This doesn’t mean they have skeletons hiding in their closet that you’ll stumble upon one day, it just means they’re not who they grew up around.

5. Alone time together is sacred. You reach a point in your life when you’re so busy you feel like you don’t ever see each other, much less get alone time together when you’re doing something other than sleeping.

6. Just when you think you can’t love someone any more than you already do, something happens to bring you closer. It might just be a really hilarious joke that only you two would find funny or taking the next step in your relationship, like moving in or getting married, but passion doesn’t have to fade.

7. Compromises are worth it. Because at the end of the day, nothing beats being with the person you love, even if you have to do something you wouldn’t otherwise do to make the relationship work. Because their happiness makes you happy.

8. Communication solves all problems. You can’t expect anyone to read your mind, even your soul mate. And your soul mate will always be able to tell if you’re upset, so you know it’s better just to tell them why instead of leaving them guessing.

9. A whole day with nothing to do but hang out with each other is the hands-down best. This is why honeymoons are the best best BEST best.

10. Cuddling with the person you love will always make you feel better. Nothing beats crawling into the arms of the person you love. Even sometimes when you think you just want to be alone, your partner will scoop you up to comfort you and you’ll feel instantly calmed. and vice versa -Nativegrl77

11. When you really love someone, you realize you can totally lay bare your insecurities to another person. Even when they feel so personal you never expected to discuss them with another soul. And you feel more secure as a result.

12. When your partner wants to do stuff without you or needs alone time, that doesn’t mean you’re in a fight or things are bad between you two. You know that maintaining lives independently of one another’s is healthy. And chances are, when he’s off with his friends, he’s talking about how wonderful you are.

13. You don’t have to share the same friends for your relationship to work. You just have to be respectful of the people your significant other values.

14. Emotional intimacy and physical intimacy feed each other. It’s a never-ending cycle that brings you closer and closer together, and you feel like you can’t have one without the other.

15. Your soul mate will make you a better person. You’ll want to be kinder, more understanding, more supportive, and more empathetic not just to be the best significant other you can be, but because your S.O. inspires you.

We Stood with Peggy Young at the Supreme Court to Fight Pregnancy Discrimination

Dear friend,

Earlier this week, Peggy Young’s pregnancy discrimination case came before the Supreme Court. Peggy was forced off her job while pregnant, losing income and her health benefits in the process. Women should not have to choose between their jobs and the health of their pregnancies. We stood with Peggy inside the court room, at the rally on the steps outside of the Supreme Court and online. Thank you for taking the time to show your support, so many of you helped us to show solidarity with Peggy and all pregnant workers that #StandWithPeggy peaked at 2,300 tweets per hour on Wednesday!

ABB Co-President Dina Bakst was inside the court for the arguments. You can read her Op-Ed, Supreme Court Must Make Clear That Pregnancy Discrimination Is Unjust co-authored with MomsRising here.

The rally emceed by ABB’s Southern Office Director Elizabeth Gedmark was a complete success! More than 200 advocates and supporters came together for the event, enthusiastically chanting and carrying signs despite the wintery weather. Stories were shared of other pregnant workers, who were pushed out of their jobs, like ABB Client Officer Lyndi Trischler. You can read her story here.

Dear Readers:Meet Alejandrina. She was 11 when Los Angeles Times journalists first began reporting her story. Alejandrina, a little girl who likes lip gloss and longs to go to back to school, works 14 hours a day picking chile peppers for a farm that supplies a U.S. distributor.

Mexican law requires workers to be at least 15, but Alejandrina is among an estimated 100,000 children younger than that who work the fields. As she told The Times: “I work because we don’t have any money and we need money to eat things.”

This marks the fourth and final piece in our Product of Mexico series, an investigation into conditions on Mexican farms that supply Americans with much of our tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers and other produce.

I want to thank all of you for reading this important series and sharing it with others. Here’s a sneak peek at a videocoming Monday that features Marosi and Bartletti talking about the reporting behind this eye-opening series.